This 120-year-old Sukiya-style residence within the coronary heart of Kyoto’s historic Gion district has been restored as an unique personal villa for as much as six friends. Resort VMG Villa Kyoto was as soon as the Nineteen Forties personal retreat of tea grasp and restaurateur Goichi Uno, who hosted tea gatherings for Kyoto’s cultural elite. This award-winning property blends Japanese and Western architectural components throughout two flooring, with an authentic tea room, personal backyard, and tranquil backyard views. Winner of Archello Awards 2025 Resort Constructing of the 12 months.
Slide open the oak gate on a quiet Higashiyama facet road and enter a world that almost all guests to Kyoto won’t ever know. The eye to element declares itself instantly: above the doorway gate, the porch roof is a miniature moss backyard of nurtured mosses and lichen, whereas within the nook hangs a kusari-doi, a handcrafted rain chain of ornamental cups, designed to information rainwater from the roof in a mild cascade. Even the sensible is gorgeous right here.
River stones lead you thru a backyard patio to the doorway corridor, the place sneakers give option to slippers. Welcome to Resort VMG Villa, Kyoto. That is genuine Kyoto, skilled in an intimate and personalised means.
The villa stands on Nene no Michi, the stone-pathed path named for the spouse of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the warlord who constructed Osaka Fortress. It sits between Yasaka Shrine and Kodaiji Temple, in what was Japan’s first designated preservation district for conventional buildings. The Gion neighbourhood is deeply evocative: little homes with excessive partitions, wood gates, and trimmed architectural pine bushes towering above. All the things is low-rise, historic, lush with greenery. In reality, Kyoto is a metropolis of gardens, and a few magical ones lie inside minutes of the villa, just like the serene Entoku-in. But for all its central place, the home exists in outstanding tranquillity, with solely the sound of birdsong from the backyard filling the house, whereas one afternoon, the sounds of a choir carried out drifted throughout from Maruyama Park Live performance Corridor.
A Place for Kyoto’s Cultural Elite
Goichi Uno acquired this home round 1940 as his personal retreat. He was the proprietor of Sakau, a kappo restaurant as soon as thought-about the best in Osaka, and a tea grasp of the Enshu college. Below his stewardship, the villa grew to become a spot for tea gatherings that introduced collectively Kyoto’s cultural elite, and that historical past infuses every nook of this outstanding residence. The 4.5-tatami tea room (known as yojohan in Japanese) stays on the bottom flooring, its calming simplicity unchanged.
Inside the primary home there’s a mix of Japanese and Western components that have been modern among the many higher courses of the period, and the restoration by architect Moriyoshi Naotake has preserved this character with outstanding sensitivity. The inside simplicity is calming, nothing overwhelms. Particulars, motifs, design components reveal themselves gently as you progress via the rooms.
Archello Awards 2025 Resort Constructing of the 12 months
The renovation, themed across the idea of Kirei Sabi, a mixing of tranquility and splendour, gained the Archello Awards 2025 Resort Constructing of the 12 months. The unique ceilings have been too vital to change, so lighting was rethought solely. Oblique illumination rises from flooring furnishings and openings. New oak items distinction intentionally with the present supplies, making seen the connection between outdated and new. Air con hides inside built-in furnishings fairly than disrupting the ceiling strains.
Your Non-public Kyoto Dwelling
A protracted hall runs the size of the bottom flooring. To the left as you enter sits the tea room. Forward, the primary salon opens via floor-to-ceiling sliding doorways onto the backyard, with conventional wood geta slippers ready must you want to stroll among the many moss and river stones, the stone lanterns and maple bushes. The visible concord is a delight: inside and out of doors develop into one, the backyard framed like a residing portray that shifts with the sunshine. Because the day strikes, the paper screens catch the altering solar and create their very own shadow-play.
The backyard itself rewards the curious. The river stone path winds via shiny inexperienced moss that surrounds every stone, gentle filtering via the leaves and branches of the maples above. It’s a small house that embraces you with magnificence and tranquillity.
Luxurious Lodging
The villa has 4 bedrooms of varied sizes unfold throughout its two flooring, together with the main bedroom. The beds sit low, Japanese-style on tatami, however are dressed Western-fashion with duvets and positive linens. The principle rest room has a deep soaking tub, an infinite bathe, and classic glass home windows looking onto an inner bamboo backyard.
A second rest room features a dressing room. Considerate particulars embrace the MINUCA facilities, their formulations based mostly on rice bran left over from sake manufacturing.
Climb the steps and the character shifts. The primary-floor salon wraps itself in glass, the home windows looking via maple branches to the backyard under and the rooftops past. Right here the Western affect is stronger, a rarity for its time. The superbly restored signature ceiling attracts the attention upward.
The kitchen has every part required for a easy snack, and the massive fridge arrives stocked with champagne, sake and wine. But cooking feels pointless when VMG’s eating choices are so shut at hand.
Heian Shrine Breakfast
Breakfast is taken at Heian Shrine, a brief switch from the villa. This magnificent backyard is the backdrop for an unforgettable begin to your day. A desk is about overlooking Shinen, the backyard of the gods, with views throughout the pond to Taihei-kaku, the elegant, roofed bridge that was as soon as an Imperial present.
The seasonal menu is deeply Kyoto: steamed fish with silken yuba, pumpkin and almond milk potage, Daikoku mushrooms, shibazuke pickles, and greens tucked into crisp monaka wafers. Afterwards, tickets will let you stroll via the backyard itself.
Kiwami Omakase Dinner
For dinner, Kiwami is the tackle. The omakase counter sits inside Akagane Resort Kyoto Higashiyama 1925, one other historic constructing with its personal Japanese backyard. Chef Shu Ishii educated in Switzerland earlier than returning to Japan, and his cooking displays this uncommon path. He has persona too, guiding you thru every course with evident delight.
We started with prized Kyoto shiitake, among the world’s most sought-after mushrooms, just some slices lifted with chopsticks and accompanied by a small cup of inventory. What adopted was a procession of autumn: consommé-baked matsutake, contemporary persimmon with Chinese language cabbage, cauliflower with caviar, pufferfish milt with leek, porcini with potato, Shinshu trout in a fragile consommé tea rice. The meal ended with candy potato mont blanc and soy sauce ice cream, a mixture that sounds as if it mustn’t work however did, brilliantly. Sake pairings all through. The setting, the meals, the quiet theatre of the counter: one other magical expertise of staying at Resort VMG Villa, Kyoto.
Returning to the villa after dinner, enjoyable within the first-floor salon with a glass of sake. The day-trippers have gone. The town belongs to those that sleep right here.
The Actual Kyoto
Kyoto is a well-liked worldwide vacation spot. The principle streets of the historic Gion district might be busy in the course of the day. However staying at VMG Villa places you contained in the outdated city fairly than passing via it. You wake to silence.
You stroll to Yasaka Pagoda at seven within the morning, the sky simply starting to heat, the streets empty save for a couple of guests and, unexpectedly, marriage ceremony photographers. {Couples} in conventional costume or marriage ceremony garments pose at magical spots whereas professionals seize the second. It’s an perception into the tradition, this impulse to mark life’s passages in stunning locations, and at that hour you will have the streets virtually to your self.
(Images of Kyoto sights, Copyright Andrew A Forbes)
Personalised Care
There is no such thing as a employees in the home; one enjoys whole privateness. The concierge crew on the close by VMG Resort Kyoto greets you on arrival with conventional sweets, heat fragrant hand towels and refreshments. They assist form your keep, prepare personal transfers, e book temple excursions or a conventional tea ceremony, and stay out there every time wanted. However the villa itself is yours alone.
This was an unforgettable Kyoto keep. Every second revealed the appeal and magic of this metropolis. Paper shoji screens filtered the sunshine. A single flower stem in a small vase forged its shadow on a low desk. These are the glimpses that stick with you, the feel of a way of life that’s distinctive to VMG Villa Kyoto, your private home in Gion, town’s evocative, historic geisha district.
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